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December 6, 2001 — Thanks largely to a network of more than 11,000 volunteer weather observers across the country, NOAA has placed interactive daily snowfall maps and data online. Maps of the nation and each state show snowfall for the most recent one-, two-, three- and seven-day period, as well as current snow depth maps of the states and the nation. Users can also access maps showing snowfall for the month to date and the season to date. (Click NOAA image for larger view of storm aftermath in Center Moriches, New York, Eastern Long Island, March 6, 2001. Click here to view more images.

"Snow data on the Web site are easily accessible, and the site is extremely user-friendly," said Jay Lawrimore, who heads the Climate Monitoring Branch at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. "Even a novice computer user can have an unprecedented wealth of daily, monthly and season-to-date snowfall information at his fingertips in a matter of seconds."

The snow data are made available from Cooperative Observers across the United States who call in their observations to NOAA's National Weather Service each morning. Their observations are taken at non-airport locations, including sites representative of where people live, work, play and grow their food. Locations include national parks, mountain-top resorts, urban and suburban neighborhoods, and rural farm sites. These volunteers donate more than one million hours each year to collect the weather data that becomes our national climate records. The data, some dating back to the 1890s, are housed at NCDC's Asheville center.

NCDC is part of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, the nation's primary source of meteorological and climate data. NESDIS operates the nation's environmental satellites, which are used for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and other environmental applications such as fire detection, ozone monitoring, and sea surface temperature measurements. NESDIS also operates three data centers, which house global data bases in climatology, oceanography, solid earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, and paleoclimatology.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA's U.S. Snow Monitoring

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center

Media Contact:
Patricia Viets, NOAA, (301) 457-5005